Expectations for 2022/23: where you stand on this roster heading in to the season

[dudacek]

Vibes, ladies and gentleman, vibes.

The poll for this thread should make clearer what your expectations are for the team as a whole, but as far as your expectations for individual players go: to paraphrase Dennis Hopper, good things man, good things. The best word to describe the way you voted was optimistic.

1. Nobody expects any of the players who broke out last year to backslide:

This, perhaps more than anything explains the conflict between how Sabresfans view the Sabres and how others do. 59 per cent of you expect Jeff Skinner to repeat his career year. Tage Thompson improves his career-best numbers by 54 points and 78 percent of you say he will do as good, or better this year. 95 per cent of you feel Alex Tuch will hit totals he has reached just once in his career. 85 per cent of you think Rasmus Dahlin will finish the year recognized as one of the NHL's top defencemen. Even Kyle Okposo's jump from 2 goals to 21 goals at the age of 34 seems sustainable for nearly half of you.

2. The supporting cast is going to improve

It's probably not a surprise that the polls reveal great faith in improvement from Dylan Cozens and Casey Mittelstadt, given the development curve of the former and the misfortunes of the latter, combined with the draft pedigree and the opportunity in front of each. What's probably more surprising is the fact that nearly 59 per cent of you believe that after only 54 NHL games Mattias Samuelsson will be effective as the team's top shutdown defenceman.

3. You aren't pinning your hopes on rookies

One of the more intriguing trends of the polls was the reluctance of people to expect "too much" from the kids. Fully 1/3 of you expect Peterka to spend time in Rochester while only 10 per cent see him in the rookie of the year conversation. Quinn fared a little better with just 4 per cent predicting more time with the Amerks and 23 per cent seeing him being a Calder contender. Even Power — whom everyone expects to play and play a lot — had 3/4s of the voters expecting less than 40 points.

4. Goaltending will be better, but it's still a concern

Sabrespace has invested a fair amount of hope in Comrie (62 per cent) to emerge to carry the load better than last year's collection of keepers, even though only 27 per cent of you feel he will do that to the level of a legit NHL #1. You don't think Craig Anderson can perform at a level beyond "reliable backup", and almost no one expects Luukkonen to be a significant factor on the big club this year. A sizable portion don't see that ever happening for UPL.

Do you agree with the consensus? Why or why not?

Individual polls here:

• 1 Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen
• 8 Riley Sheahan
• 10 Henri Jokiharju
• 15 Anders Bjork
• 19 Peyton Krebs
• 20 Lawrence Pilut
• 21 Kyle Okposo
• 22 Jack Quinn
• 23 Mattias Samuelsson
• 24 Dylan Cozens
• 25 Owen Power
• 26 Rasmus Dahlin
• 28 Zemgus Girgensons
• 29 Vinnie Hinostroza
• 31 Eric Comrie
• 37 Casey Mittelstadt
• 41 Craig Anderson
• 45 Casey Fitzgerald
• 46 Ilya Lyubushkin
• 53 Jeff Skinner
• 71 Victor Olofsson
• 72 Tage Thompson
• 74 Rasmus Asplund
• 77 JJ Peterka
• 78 Jacob Bryson
• 89 Alex Tuch

[Huckleberry]

Depends on our goalies, but for now with some competent goaltending I say around 85 points.

[PerreaultForever]

idk, I think it's kind of the same as last year. maybe more competitive games, closer games, maybe some moments when everything clicks and they look great but also tons of mistakes, blown games, lapses and bad goals let in at bad times. 

My biggest fear is still that they are being too slow and patient with the rebuild, with too much faith in prospects, and thus they will miss a moment in time and end up in yet another cycle of losing hockey and lost desire. 

I still believe getting a real goalie should have been step one and the build should have moved out from there. There's a lot of comparisons being made to the Bills, but the Bills did it right. You get the QB and then you make the other moves. For football it's the QB. For hockey it's the goalie. You don't succeed without great goaltending and great goaltending can overcome a lot of other deficiencies as everyone who lived through the Hasek era knows. 

[GASabresIUFAN]

Out with JAGS - Butcher, Hagg, Pysyk, Bjork, Eakin, Hayden, Dell, and Tokarski

In with Quinn, JJP, Power, Lyubushkin, Comrie and full seasons of Samuelsson, Tuch and Krebs.

This is a younger, deeper and more talented team.  They will score more than they did last year and if they can stop of puck, they should jump in the standings.

Goaltending is still a big a question mark and the 3rd D pairing is suspect.  Those factors could keep this team from playoff contention.

Edited October 11, 2022 by GASabresIUFAN

[Pimlach]

Where do I stand?   About two feet from the computer display. 

I think they will improve to 85'ish points, maybe even push to 90.   

Goaltending will be better than last year but still not good enough for a playoff run. 

Power will be our best rookie, followed by Quinn.  Both will be in the running for the Calder.  

The development of Mitts and Cozens are critical to the middle 6.  Cozen will take another step up, not as confident on Mitts, but hopeful. 

It should be a fun season.  It will be very strange without RJ.   Listening to some of you whine about Dunleavy is not going to be fun either. 

Dominating the Leaves will be top priority for me, as usual. 

Hey Granato, let's avoid the long painful losing streaks too.  

[Buffalonill]

[bob_sauve28]

I think they will be better in every aspect of the game from last year. Depth at forward looks really good, so a few injuries there should not slow us down. On defence the drop off from the top four is pretty steep and a couple of injuries on the blue line could really turn them back into a not so good team. If they don't get hammered with key injuries, I think they are a pretty good team that gets better as the year goes on. They will score goals, the PP should be good and the defence seems like a solid work in progress. 

Playoffs: Yes! (I hope) 

 

[Mike in Horseheads]

We go as far as goalies take us. I picked 90+ and playoff bubble

[Mustache of God]

The Buffalo Sabres are making the playoffs this year. Full stop. 

[Thorny]

One thing interesting and abundantly clear is that, almost to a man, it doesn’t appear that playoffs, and breaking the drought, is in any way what is being expected of this club for this year. Some think it might happen, but it’s not any kind of baseline expectation for perceived success. Good buy-in. 

[Taro T]

Have been saying 91-92 all summer & haven't seen anything to change that as the mean for what they might be.

Thing is, if the goaltending is similar to last season's, Lyubushkin has the typical learning curve of a new system that a lot of D-men seem to have w/ a new team, neither Cozens nor Mittelstadt step up, &/or injuries could put them around 84 points.

But, if Comrie can be Marty Biron-esque, Buusch or Jokiharju can take control of the 4D slot, Cozens & Mitts both step up, they stay relatively healthy, & Power and Quinn (&/or Peterka) are all in the all-rookie team conversation 99 points & playoffs are possible.

[Zamboni]

I laugh and laugh and laugh when I read that you need “great goaltending” in order to make the playoffs.

Osgood was not a great goalie. The team in front of him made him look better than he was. Same with Crawford. Same for so many teams who had slightly above average goalies, but had deep teams in front of him to make him look much much better and do damage in the playoffs. You don’t NEED great goaltending. But it helps.

[Weave]

1 hour ago, Zamboni said:

I laugh and laugh and laugh when I read that you need “great goaltending” in order to make the playoffs.

Osgood was not a great goalie. The team in front of him made him look better than he was. Same with Crawford. Same for so many teams who had slightly above average goalies, but had deep teams in front of him to make him look much much better and do damage in the playoffs. You don’t NEED great goaltending. But it helps.

Ypu need great goaltending when your roster lacks top end forwards and has a lot of kids that haven’t reached their peak yet.

[Zamboni]

2 minutes ago, Weave said:

Ypu need great goaltending when your roster lacks top end forwards and has a lot of kids that haven’t reached their peak yet.

Well … yea. IF you don’t have a deep team. You need amazing goaltending to reach the playoffs.
AKA “the Hasek years” 😂

[Pimlach]

11 hours ago, Zamboni said:

I laugh and laugh and laugh when I read that you need “great goaltending” in order to make the playoffs.

Osgood was not a great goalie. The team in front of him made him look better than he was. Same with Crawford. Same for so many teams who had slightly above average goalies, but had deep teams in front of him to make him look much much better and do damage in the playoffs. You don’t NEED great goaltending. But it helps.

Not great goaltending, good goaltending.  Competent and capable.  Let’s get to that level 

[GASabresIUFAN]

1 hour ago, Pimlach said:

Not great goaltending, good goaltending.  Competent and capable.  Let’s get to that level 

Goaltending is the obvious Achilles heel potentially.  Is Comrie/Anderson better than Anderson/Tokarski ?  It’s impossible to answer at this point other than to say it’s not worse.  

Here is some food for thought.  With Mitts, VO and Anderson all healthy and with Tuch and Krebs in the lineup for the final 33 games, including 21 against playoff teams and Anderson as the primary netminder, the team played at an 87 point pace.  I think that is the best evidence that this team can succeed with just mediocre goaltending.  Get even NHL average goaltending and this team could surprise.
 

 

[Gatorman0519]

It will be a fun watch, but a few years away from making the playoffs.  Still need a franchise goalie to arise and the younger ones to perfect their pro game. 

[Thorny]

15 minutes ago, Gatorman0519 said:

a fun watch, but a few years away from making the playoffs.

Such an oxymoron for me, personally. I get the process by in, but how fun can it be if we are still *a few* years away from even making the playoffs? We thinking like, 3 more seasons? Adams needs a round 6 years to convert the Sabres into a playoff roster, that was the hole? Drought need to get up to 15 years missing, straight?

Actually asking lol

Edited October 11, 2022 by Thorny

[Curt]

On 10/10/2022 at 4:11 PM, Buffalonill said:

You didn’t vote for it!  Put it down on the permanent record.

[Buffalonill]

12 minutes ago, Curt said:

You didn’t vote for it!  Put it down on the permanent record.

I just dont have any confidence in the goaltending and i believe lots of players will regress.

 

[dudacek]

7 minutes ago, Buffalonill said:

I just dont have any confidence in the goaltending and i believe lots of players will regress.

 

Who and why?

[Marvin]

16 minutes ago, Buffalonill said:

I just dont have any confidence in the goaltending and i believe lots of players will regress.

 

 

9 minutes ago, dudacek said:

Who and why?

Seconded.

[Buffalonill]

25 minutes ago, dudacek said:

Who and why?

-Kyle Okposo great guy have nothing against him but he had a very  Flukey year his best since his NYI days he will regress back to his 10g -15g 30 points days 

- tage Thompson his high  Shooting percent Should put some concern in people's eyes I've see this story before aka .. William Karlsson etc

Jeff skinner ( huge fan) every good year he has the next is a down year it happens every time.

- power people believe hes already a number 2 and going to be in the calder race . I see a guy that will be very rocky the whole year 

 

 

Edited October 12, 2022 by Buffalonill

[thewookie1]

My guess is high 80’s or 90’s as long as key players stay healthy and experience curves keep on track. For instance even if Skinner goes 30g20a but Cozens gets to 20g40a then we have a net win.

Tuch will bring consistent effort and be a rallying figure to the team as a whole and its fans. 
 

Goaltending is still questionable but at very least UPL looked better in the preseason, Comrie is almost certainly an upgrade to Tokarski and especially Dell. If Anderson can merely stay .900 SV% we’ll survive most nights.

Lots of rookie talent replacing JAGs.

To me the loss of Dell and Butcher are hugely positive. Dell went 1-8-1 in his 10 games; if he’s just plain average at 4-4-2 we’d have finished with 80+ points last year.

Butcher was a defensive train wreck who was supposed to bring offense but rarely did. 
 

Out of our subtractions only Pysyk will be missed essentially.

 

 

[GoPuckYourself]

I'm trying to be realistic, I see around the same record as last year. I don't think Goaltending is strong enough yet, if we have any key injuries on defense then we'll be in trouble as we're pretty thin imo as far as depth. Plus a bunch of unknowns like Jeff Skinner (can he sustain what he did last season?), Tage Thompson (Had a career year by a mile), Kyle Okposo (Had his best year in a very long time, does he have anything left?). Of course I hope I'm wrong and we make the playoffs and I think we're definitely headed in the right direction but there are too many question marks this season.